This past year, I’ve learned something: treat people the way they want to be treated.

Personally, I’m someone who hates small talk. I don’t care if you ask me how my day’s going. I don’t care if you don’t have some sort of small catch-up before getting into the business-related convo.

Whenever I know someone is contacting me for a favor, I’d prefer if they just go, “Hey Nick, can you help me with XYZ?” I hate when they have this desire to build towards their ask.

However, I know that not everyone is like me. Therefore, that quote, “Treat people the way you would want to be treated,” is bullshit.

If I treated people the way I like to be treated, I’d have a lot of people not liking me.

Over the past few months, I’ve had interactions that were negative based on my inability to treat people the way they wanted to be treated.

For example, I was having a conversation over IM with a co-worker and my blunt/short responses rubbed her the wrong way. She informed me that she didn’t appreciate the tone of my delivery.

I respected the fact that she immediately called me out on it because I love genuine feedback. Once she told me, I apologized and improved my responses when conversing with her. I started paying more attention to how I talk to people via in-person or IM.

Everybody’s different and they require you to speak to them in a certain manner. What works with one person will often not work for someone else.

My delivery of communication is primarily straightforward. It can be a positive or negative thing depending on who I’m speaking with.

I write this post to have you question whether you may do the same. Maybe you’re the type that loves small talk and you’re speaking to someone like me. Do you think you’re rubbing them the wrong way?

Only way to figure out is by getting to know the person. Get to know them and understand their personality. A good leader gets to know the people he/she works with.